Orbital forcing of the marine isotope stage 9 interglacial

Milankovitch orbital forcing theory has been used to assign time scares to many paleoclimate records. However, the validity of this theory remains unc ertain, and independent sea-level chronologies used to test its applicabili ty have been restricted Largely to the past similar to 135,000 years. Here, we report U-series ages for coral reefs formed on Henderson Island during sea-level high-stands occurring at similar to 630,000 and similar to 330,00 0 years ago. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that interglacia l climates are forced by Northern Hemisphere summer solar insolation center ed at 65 degreesN latitude, as predicted by Milankovitch theory.